The Beatles (The White Album)

I was thinking about The Beatles (The White Album) recently and had a couple realizations about it.  In the liner notes of the two copies I have (a 2009 remaster and the smaller version of the 50th anniversary edition with just the two discs of the album and the Esher demos), the album's contrast with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is discussed to some degree.  In the 50th anniversary edition liner notes, John Lennon is quoted:  "The double album was a complete reversal from Sgt. Pepper."  Paul McCartney is more specific: "On Sgt. Pepper we had more orchestral stuff than we'd ever used before so it was more of a production.  But this time we didn't really want to go overboard on that and we've tried to play more like a band."  This musical shift seems to have carried over to the album covers, too.  The liner notes in the 2009 remaster explain that "Any expectations of a cover to rival the vivid art work of Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour were immediately overturned.  The outside of the sleeve was completely white with the only lettering consisting of 'The Beatles' embossed on the front and also printed on the spine with the catalogue number."

In more ways than one, even the titles indicate the opposing qualities of the two albums.  The most obvious difference is the length:  "The Beatles" (even called a "minimalist title" in the 50th anniversary edition liner notes) is much shorter than "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."  (Note that Lennon and McCartney both abbreviate it to just "Sgt. Pepper" in the quotes above.)  More significantly, though, the eponymous nature of the title "The Beatles" demonstrates an authenticity instead of the artifice involved in pretending to be Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The White Album

This is more of a tangential issue, but I'm writing about it anyway.  Two days ago, I read the entry for "album" in Merriam-Webster's dictionary.  The etymology notes that it comes from albus, the Latin word for "white."  The first definition explains that originally an album was "a book with blank pages used for making a collection (as of autographs, stamps, or photographs)."  Although since the sense of "album" later changed to include "one more more recordings (as on tape or disc) produced as a single unit," going by the original etymology, "The White Album" is a redundant moniker.